Records Labels Prepare Massive 'Pirate Site' Domain Blocking Blitz

An anonymous reader writes "In their ongoing battle against websites said to infringe music copyrights, record labels have initiated a fresh wave of actions aimed at forcing UK ISPs to carry out domain blocking. This third wave is set to be the biggest so far, affecting as many as 25 domains and including some of the world's largest torrent sites and file-hosting search engines. Furthermore, the BPI – the entity coordinating the action – will ask courts to block U.S.-based music streaming operation, Grooveshark."

Comments

Good luck with that

[Hatta]

Domain blocking has been so successful already. No one will figure out how to use alternative DNS servers, or simply type in the IP address manually.

Re:Good luck with that

[Anubis350]

Or the sites will just move domains/set up alternate domains, as has happened with thepiratebay, eztv, and demonoid just off the top of my head

Re:Good luck with that

[Joce640k]

Domain blocking has been so successful already. No one will figure out how to use alternative DNS servers, or simply type in the IP address manually.

Doesn't matter, it's all about training governments to bend over whenever they say so. They'll be back again soon, with bigger demands.

PS: Thanks, RIAA, for letting me know about Grooveshark...

Re:Good luck with that

[Penguinisto]

As do I - I'd tell you where I keep that list (and a backup copy of it), but I don't feel like summoning APK.

Re:Good luck with that

[Falkentyne]

Full disclosure, I'm listening to Taylor Swift right now. That's right, I just called myself dumb and am admitting to listening to "Trouble" by Taylor Swift.

Please mod parent down and parent's parents should be modded down too for allowing this to happen.

Re:Good luck with that

[martinX]

A Swedish VPN once bit my sister ...

    No realli! She was Karving her initials on the Swedish VPN
    with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given
    her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Stockholm dentist and
    star of many Swedish møvies: "The Høt Hands of a Stockholm
    Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst
    Nordfink".

What a coincidence!

[decipher_saint]

My wallet is going on a record label blocking blitz

Life sure is funny sometimes.

Another ridiculous situation

[Okian Warrior]

This is yet another ridiculous situation, stupid enough that it makes me wonder why such situations exist.

If a website is illegal (for any definition of illegal, including terrorism, pornography, and IP violations), then it should be judged illegal by a court in country with reference to the specific law that the site violates. That country can then mandate that ISPs in that country block that specific website, the government can ask the government of the registrar or hosting company to take action, the government can identify people who access the site and charge them with a crime.

Illegal is illegal, but this thing about "anyone can take action if they think something is illegal" is ludicrous. Letting business advocacy groups, unelected government bureaucrats, and random government departments to suddenly state "we're the governing authority, this is illegal, we're pulling your plug" is complete bullshit. Government departments can certainly make such pronouncements, but should be required to act only with court approval. For instance, if the State Department wants Defense Distributed to take their plans offline, it should get a court order.

The courts exist to protect our rights. Taking action without judicial process is an end-run around those rights, and shouldn't be allowed.

Re:Time to consider an alternate/supliment DNS roo

[Cenan]

The worst problem with the central server approach is not squatting, that is a minor annoyance to some people's vanity. The worst problem with the central server is that it is a central server, and thus is vulnerable to whomever has juristiction over the physical location it resides in. However, a peer-to-peer solution (as they look right now) is much worse. There are two major problems with a P2P approach to DNS, that you don't have with the central server.

1) Privacy: when requesting a lookup, you're telling an arbitrary number of strangers which site you would like to visit next. With the server, you're only telling the server, but this is a trust issue and can be resolved. The P2P approach by it's nature cannot be trusted.
2) Poisoning: all you'd have to do to poison a swarm is join it, and start pushing bogus replies to requests. There is no barrier like with a central DNS server, which you'd have to hack into in order to poison.

An approach like you suggest is a central DNS server in disguise and not really a solution to any problem, since you get the worst of both worlds.

Its not the media comapnies that are the problem

[future assassin]

its those who buy their shit. Stop buying it and in 5 years they`ll all fold.

Re:They don't care.

[CelticWhisper]

The problem with that is that they can "presume" all they want, but they still have less money coming in. Granted, it doesn't address the aforementioned issue of needing a critical mass of participants for the boycott to be successful, but the mere act of assuming a given cause for a reduced revenue stream doesn't magically restore the revenue stream to previous levels.

Run your own DNS server

[houghi]

Alternate DNS servers? I live in Belgium where they block (among others) TPB, so I just run my own.
OK, I am able to configure my own named server. What is needed for others is an idiot proof DNS server that people can run on their local machine (so no remote connections allowed).

And I talk about so easy, your grandma can install it and it runs by just double clicking. Something that is made for just local usage with as little configuration as possible. No need to be able to make any local domains. Just something so you do not need an external DNS server.

Perhaps that already exists and it is just not commonly known.